They re-released Sholay on the big screen after 38 years. It
was released around a month before I was born and it’s been there in our conscience
ever since. Such was the impact of the movie. To my mind and also for a million
others – it was the defining movie for Indian cinema.
Growing up, I funnily never got the chance to watch it.
Probably because my parents must have
watched it well before I was in my senses. But the dialogues were firmly etched
in my memory. This was thanks to the songs and dialogues of Sholay cassette
that we had at home. I read much later that, the film was declared a flop in
its first few weeks and picked up much later. Even after the movie became a hit
the records did not move. It seems the movie was so powerful that the songs
never registered in the people’s psyche. Only after Polydor released the ‘Songs
and dialogues version’ did the sales shoot up. Rightly so – the movie is all
about the story and dialogues. There is one scene after the other full of
characters mouthing one repeatable dialogue after the other. At home we used to
listen to the cassette and knew the dialogues by heart.
Later on when satellite TV reached our households, I would have
seen the movie in bits and pieces many times, but never together in totality.
It was only much later that I bought the DVD or something and watched it end to
end.
So when the news was that the movie is releasing again – I asked
Jispa if she wanted to see it. She wasn’t too keen. Then I had to sell it to
her. You know Gabbar is in this movie. You know Jai and Viru are also from this
movie. Dialogues such as Tere naam kya hai basanti, kitne aadmi the, tera kya
hogo kaaliya, chal dhanno, etc… Jispa was amazed. All this is from this movie?
Yup. It’s all here. Now that it was appropriately sold, she was game for the movie.
Jispa is such a twerp. She is very very irritatingly choosy on if she wants to
watch a movie or not. But then….
So we went and watched the movie. It had released in the 2D
and the 3D version but we went for the 2D version at Regal theatre. If you see
it then you must see it on the big screen, the traditional way. And we hate the
3D specs as it gives us a headache. And I wasn’t disappointed. DVD is a poor
cousin for this movie. This is great movie. After all these years and after
knowing the story and the dialogues, you are still glued on. The fun bit is
knowing which dialogue is going to come in and saying it just as it is being
delivered. You are then a part of the movie yourself. You end up interacting
with it yourself. What a movie. To my mind there are no wasted shots and movie
moves forward at an amazing pace. At best one can fault the action – the scenes
where the bad guys get shot and jump from their horses or
pedestals..aaaaaaaaaaaaaaa. That seemed hackneyed by today’s standard. But the
rest was good enough to keep Jispa happy. She enjoyed the movie as well.
After the movie we went home and I dug out the book I had on
the making of the movie and gave it to Jispa to read. Now that you enjoyed the
movie, do read how much fun it was to make.
Talking about movies – we caught an interesting movie on
DVD. We saw Lootera. While it had two actors I wouldn’t care of, I figured from
some interviews given that it was a different movie. I was amazed by the movie.
It truly was a nice movie. It was a bit slow but a few things happened that has
never happened in the history of Hindi movies. One – there are so many scenes
that don’t have any dialogue and secondly – there are scenes where the actors
whisper to each other. In Bollywood, there are no whispers. People shout out
their secrets to each other. Nothing is understated or subtle. It’s over the top.
All the time. Go see the movie – it’s different. I liked it, but yes it’s a bit
extra on emotion, but it’s nice still.
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